Martin O'Malley Faces the Wonk's Dilemma. [View all]

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The former Maryland governor is winning the ideas race.

Some 20 major candidates are running for president in 2016, but just one of them has put his name to a series of detailed policy proposals that activists in his base call "fantastic" and "great" and "moving the debate forward."

The problem? That candidate is stuck at 1 or 2 percent in the polls. . .

And yet O'Malley is leading the battle of ideas in his field. He's the first candidate to release detailed policy proposals on key issues like climate change (he proposes to phase out fossil fuels by 2050), immigration (he advocates the most far-reaching executive actions any candidate has suggested to help undocumented people, whom he calls "New Americans&quot , cracking down on Wall Street (he'd break up big banks and tightening regulations) and making college debt-free for students. The proposals, which buck the trend of candidates avoiding policy specificity, have earned praise from progressive wonks who follow those issues.

"These policy positions that Martin O'Malley is putting out here are fantastic," said Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of Democracy For America, a progressive advocacy group founded by Howard Dean.

On Wall Street reform, O'Malley goes beyond the standard populist call to split up the largest financial firms; he's delving into details like deferred prosecution deals at the Justice Department and on having the president appoint the Federal Reserve's general counsel. . .

"It's great that he's coming out with detailed progressive proposals now and moving the debate forward," said Nick Berning, a spokesman for MoveOn.org, calling O'Malley's ideas "responsive to where not just the progressive base is, but voters across America are."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-16/martin-o-malley-faces-the-wonk-s-dilemma